What Jobs Are Available For Software Engineers Who Want To Advance Medical Research?

Without going into the specifics of your situation just yet, here are the ways a computer engineer could contribute to medical research, with increasing edginess:

1. Work for an established medical tech firm, such as Medtronic, Intuitive Surgical, or Boston Scientific to name a few game changers, and of course the big boys like GE Healthcare, Philips or Siemens Medical. Companies such as PerkinElmer or Pacific Biosciences develop tools such as sequencers, assays, or test kits for life science research. These companies build devices, which almost always need software for processing, pattern recognition, data mining, databases, or user interfaces. Often these products are used by patients, physicians, or biologists who can be demanding but not the most tech-savvy, so managing functionality with safety and ease of use will be challenging.

The medical clientele are among the most difficult in engineering, but the work is incredibly rewarding. Note however, that you will mostly likely NOT be advancing medical research. You will be developing and iterating on a product just like you would in a regular tech firm, and likely a cutting-edge new device, but it will not be particularly novel from a research standpoint. Even if you are developing a research tool, you are likely optimizing rather than breaking new ground. The research arms of these firms will possibly be working on newer technologies, but again they are unlikely to compete with the breadth and depth of work at research universities. The remuneration however will be among the best in the industry, although I suspect it will never really compare to the equivalent tech places like Microsoft or Google.

2. Work for a medical startup. Companies like Medtronic (Duke) and Intuitive (Johns Hopkins) were started with talent and/or technology sourced from universities. Their products tend to be based on new technologies piping hot from university labs, and are much more likely to make an unprecedented impact (or fail, of course). You may have to work through the long and frustrating process of animal/clinical trials, FDA approval and lobbying to get your revolutionary product approved and accepted into widespread use. The scope of work and type of clients are the same as in the previous point. Remuneration is likely to be much less - medical startups are unlikely to pay anywhere as well as tech startups.

It is also much, much more difficult to release a 'disruptive' product as one might aspire to in a Silicon Valley startup. Medical or scientific protocol is formalized, rigorous, and obsessively tested for safety and repeatability. It is incredibly difficult to change the way a certain procedure or task is being done, or to even prove the need for a change especially if the task is reasonably successful with current methods. Even if you fervently believe that your product could make a task 1000x more efficient, effective, accurate, nobody is going to believe you, and they won't even bother trying it out. Maybe a new social network, or instant messaging client. Not a new imaging scanner or cryoablation device. Imagine having to get a bunch of dogs to try playing your new iPhone game so you can prove it's fun before you can submit it to the App Store - that's how hard it is in the medical industry. It can take 10 years or more.

3. Work as a research engineer in a university lab, or even (OMGWTF?) go to graduate school. You will earn peanuts. But you will also work on cutting-edge, bleeding-edge technologies that will make your mother gasp and your doctors blush. You will probably never have the same range of clients in the real world as you would in a large company or even a startup, but you will likely engage a number of clinical collaborators who will keep you on your toes. (There is nothing more hopeless than a medical engineer without a clinical collaborator.)

The immediate impact of your work is likely to be far less than industry, but you could be writing patents and starting a company with your technology within just a few years of hard work and training. And then point 2 applies.

Will you have to learn a whole new set of skills? Regardless of the type of setting you choose from above, probably yes, but not all that much. You will almost certainly need to learn the intimate details about the scientific or medical procedure that you are trying to cater to. It is impossible to create anything of true impact otherwise. This can be quite jarring especially if you are an engineer or computer scientist by training, but I would encourage you to join this elite group of engineers who are able to engage both their engineering colleagues and physicians with equal ease. At least you won't need to go to medical school. The more established and less edgy your company is, the less you will probably need to know outside of your engineering grunt tasks. If you are expecting to develop a disruptive product, expect to pore over hundreds of medical articles and somehow understand most of it.

The medical tech industry needs computer engineers urgently. You have the opportunity to make a huge impact, either in the short- or long-term, depending if you choose the safe route or the big-time. In other words, this really isn't all that different from traditional software engineering opportunities, just that the work is that much harder, and that much more important.